Boyle's Buffs Open MGM Event Against Wyoming
November 23, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Neill Woelk
LAS VEGAS — When Colorado Buffaloes basketball coach Tad Boyle scheduled his team to participate in the MGM Main Event, he had a very specific purpose in mind.
The event will see the No. 23 Buffs play two games in three days, beginning with Sunday's 6 p.m. (MT) matchup against Wyoming at T-Mobile Arena (ESPN3). That will be followed by a Tuesday game against either TCU or Clemson.
It is the kind of compact schedule the Buffs will see in Pac-12 play and similar to what they will face in the Pac-12 tournament (in the same arena).
It's also exactly the kind of schedule they hope to see in March in the NCAA Tournament — two games in three days on a neutral floor. Boyle wants his team to get accustomed to that kind of quick turnaround.
"We'll have one day prep between the Sunday game and the Tuesday game and two quality opponents," Boyle said. "You don't know who the second one will be, obviously, but you know the first one. It kind of gives you that tournament feel a little bit … we're approaching it like it's a tournament. We have an opportunity to win a championship."
The 3-0 Buffs open the affair against a 3-3 Wyoming team that has already had an up-and-down season. The Cowboys dropped an 83-63 decision last Saturday at home to Oregon State, but rebounded with a pair of wins Detroit Mercy and Louisiana Lafayette.
The Buffs, meanwhile, haven't played since last Monday's 69-53 win over UC Irvine, which wrapped up another two-games-in-three-days stretch.
"They've got some guys that are talented," Boyle said of coach Allen Edwards' Cowboys. "They've got got good personnel, they stretch the floor."
The Cowboys are led by 6-foot-7 wing Hunter Maldonado, a Colorado Springs prep product (Vista Ridge) who spent much of his high school career battling with CU's D'Shawn Schwartz. Maldonado is averaging a team-leading 16.5 points per game, along with 5.8 rebounds. Wyoming also gets solid production from 6-10 forward Hunter Thompson, who was on CU's recruiting radar as a Wyoming prep standout. Thompson had 22 points in UW's win over Louisiana on Thursday.
Maldonado is one of four Colorado prep products on the Wyoming roster. No doubt at least a couple of them would have liked the opportunity to stay in state and play for the Buffs.
"There's there's a chip on their shoulders, there's no question, and I and I get that and I understand that," Boyle said. "I respect that, quite frankly. I think there's nothing they would like better than to stick it in Colorado's ear. We know that. We just have to be ready to handle whatever comes our way."
After opening the season among the "other teams receiving votes" category in the Associated Press poll, the Buffs have climbed up in the rankings each week. They have carved out their record behind outstanding defense and steady play from their veterans, in particular juniors Schwartz, McKinley Wright IV and Tyler Bey.
Bey is just shy of averaging a double-double for the season, currently at 15.0 points and 9.7 rebounds per game. Wright is averaging 14.7 points and 5.0 rebounds, but perhaps most importantly, already has 15 assists and just four turnovers, a healthy 3.75-to-1 ratio. Schwartz, meanwhile, is CU's third player averaging double-digit scoring with a 12.7 norm.
Overall, the Buffs haven't yet been a particularly good shooting team, hitting just 42.3 percent of their attempts from the field (77-for-182). But they have been much better from 3-point range, where their accuracy has actually been better than their overall field goal percentage. Colorado is hitting 44.1 percent of its long-range tries (26-for-59), a vast improvement over last year, when CU shot just 32.3 percent from behind the arc.
But while the shooting has been up and down, CU's defensive effort has been stellar in all three games. Colorado has forced an average of 19 turnovers per game thus far while holding opponents to just 37.6 percent shooting (65-173), including a 36.7 mark from 3-point range (22-for-60).Â
The Cowboys, though, are also playing some solid defense on their end. Wyoming's opponents are shooting just 38.1 percent from the field thus far, including an ice-cold 28.1 percent on 3-pointers.
Thus, despite their 3-3 record, Boyle has made it clear his Buffs won't take the Cowboys lightly. He pointed to other Pac-12 games earlier this week that saw Utah lose to Coastal Carolina, UCLA fall to Hofstra and Washington State lose to Omaha.
"We're not we're not going to overlook them, no question," Boyle said. "You know what happened to our league. Great example for these guys. You start sleeping on people it's gonna bite you. So we're not sleeping on Wyoming. We have great respect for them and we're going to approach this just like every other game and I don't I don't worry about that."
THE SERIES: Wyoming has a 43-36 edge in the all-time series, including wins in seven of the last eight. The last meeting between the two teams was a 56-33 Wyoming win in Laramie in 2014. The two programs have never met on a neutral floor.
BROADCAST: The game will be carried by ESPN3. KDFD 760 AM will provide the radio coverage with Voice of the Buffs Mark Johnson on play-by-play and Scott Wilke on color commentary.
UP NEXT: The Buffs will play either TCU or Clemson on Tuesday.
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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